Skate Jam revisted

Back in April I posted a few stills from some skateboarding footage I shot in Wilmington. Remember? I never intended to edit the footage. Instead I handed it off to Gordon, the guy who asked me to shoot it, so he could use it as a part of a promotional piece he was working on for the Wilmington Skate Project. Apparently he was going to conduct some interviews in front of a green screen and bulk it up a bit. He had another editor lined up to handle the technical work. But I kept my own copy of the footage, and decided to play around with it after we moved. Well, what you see here is what I came up with. I sent the finished product to Gordon. He liked it and so it has become his promotional project. He even decided to show it in front of the film festival he's organizing for September 25th. This is what the rest of the lineup looks like. I'm pretty excited to have my little video included.

The music I used is from a band I know from my hometown. They are called So Called Myth, and I'm grateful they let me use their tune. It's not the kind of stuff I normally listen to, but it has a punky edge the video needed.

Another little piece of trivia: Just about all of skateboarding sounds you hear in the video (e.g. wheels on pavement, launches off of ramps, the occasional "yeah!") were recorded at a skate plaza here in Santa Barbara. There was loud music playing in the background during the original shoot making the sound impossible to cut together and virtually unusable, except for in the interviews, which were mic'd with a lavalier. So I made a trip to the plaza and recorded the sound completely separate from the video. It's a little ironic (for the lack of a better word) that these kids are trying to raise money for a skate plaza, and the sound of them skating in the video is actually from one.

Anyway, I had fun editing this one. It was nice to work on a project at my own pace again, without deadlines or expectations (and of course money). Plus, I'm glad I can help out the Skate Project, who is planning to give the video a permanent home on their web site. The little bit of skateboarding I've been doing myself around here has made me appreciate their cause. I haven't had the guts to embarrass myself at the skate plaza down by the beach yet, and I'm finding the streets can be a harsh surface.